It was some time later that the first signals started coming in from the outer world. At first it was only from one of the relay mirrors, but soon all five were flashing. Reports streaming in along the great roads from ever deeper into the Guarded Land. Two observers watched each channel and passed on what they were reading to the operators who were relaying the signals back into Osrakum. Watching all this, Carnelian imagined the minds of the Wise slowly filling with the light of landscapes far away.
He grew weary of the constant clattering of the heliographs and the muttering of their operators. With Fern, he descended into the accommodation strata immediately below the summit and they chose a chamber in which they could still feel the operation of the machines as a vibration in the walls. There he explained to Fern what it was that was happening above their heads. Fern looked unhappy. ‘It is not for man, but only the Sky Father to see all.’ Carnelian had to admit that it was a strange, unnatural sorcery that enabled these blind men to see the whole world. Anxiety drove them into lovemaking; there was comfort and refuge in each other’s arms. Later, at a small window, they watched the signals flickering on the Canyon wall. Ammonites brought them food. When darkness fell the signals continued to be sent using the light from naphtha flares. The vibration of the heliographs was unceasing so that, when Carnelian sank into sleep, he dreamed of the women of his household in the Hold weaving on a loom a fabric that became the world.
When he woke, Carnelian saw Fern’s silhouette already at the window. He could feel the continuing chatter of the heliographs. He rose and slid his body past Fern’s. His lover turned to kiss him, then cheek to cheek they both looked out. The sky above the blackness of the Canyon wall was a thinning indigo. In the blackness five stars winked.
They stood together, among the heliographs now fallen silent, watching a single star blinking on the turn in the Canyon that led into Osrakum. Legions and his Sapients were lined up along the summit edge, gently strangling their homunculi, who were reading the signals in a constant, wavering mutter.
The transmission had started a while ago. After breakfast, he and Fern had dressed and come up to watch the heliographs relaying the data from the outer world. The sun had passed its zenith when the streams had begun to fail. First one, then two more, then the fourth and, finally, the fifth. The heliographs transmitting these last signals to Osrakum had clattered on a while, then they too had fallen silent. A single signal coming back the other way seemed to blink in acknowledgement. Then, nothing. Eerie silence. The ammonites had found places to sit among the machines. The Sapients knelt upon their ranga and seemed like more devices. Carnelian and Fern had found a place to wait. A single signal had woken them all. It was then the Sapients and their homunculi had lined up along the summit edge, waiting. A short time later, the transmission from the Wise in Osrakum had begun.
The rising-falling murmur of the homunculi ceased suddenly, jerking Carnelian out of a stupor. The Sapients took their places in a wedge with the Grand Sapient at its apex, and a new murmuring arose from them. Carnelian could grasp no words. Something like a dialogue was going on between them, but rapidly, with no gaps in the streams of sound. After observing this process for a while, he surmised they must be checking the message between them to make sure it was comprehended perfectly. At last Legions moved away to stand on his own and one of his staff sent a homunculus to ask Carnelian to come and speak with their master. Eagerness mixed with dread as he approached the ancient.
‘We have now a complete and perfect vision of the state of the Commonwealth,’ said Legions’ homunculus. ‘Further, we have distilled from this an inescapable conclusion.’
Carnelian hesitated, wanting to know what this might be, but fearing it too. ‘Can you describe this vision, my Lord?’
‘It is an entity more easily apprehended through symbols than words, but I shall attempt to satisfy your request, Celestial.
‘The cities in the south are beginning to run out of food. Supplies have been transferred from neighbouring granaries and we can arrange for a more extensive redistribution from further afield. No arrangement, however, can entirely avoid the shortage that will become universal within a few months. The parameters for the coming shortage are dependent on just how many provinces will fail to yield a standard harvest. Yield quotients are expected to be low to disastrous for the southern provinces. We do not have sufficient data to predict yields of the provinces in other zones. More positively, rumours of disturbances at the centre have not yet penetrated to the periphery. Negatively, all the peripheral provinces have been substantially denuded of their sartlar populations.’
‘All?’ Carnelian said, shocked.
‘It appears that the summons issued from Makar has spread throughout the Guarded Land. We have no means at present to ascertain how this may have happened. What cannot be doubted is that all five radial roads are clogged with sartlar moving towards the centre. It is possible their entire population is coming here.’
Dread rose in Carnelian like a vast wave, threatening to break thunderously.
‘Supporting this hypothesis is the observation that the density of the sartlar increases exponentially in proportion with proximity to Osrakum.’
Carnelian remembered the comparison the Wise had made between the sartlar and a locust swarm. Beyond the concentrating sartlar millions lay an ever widening ring of land from which they would have consumed everything edible. He felt a shadow fall across him and, glancing up, saw the clouds were closing over them again.
‘The City at the Gates exists only as an empty husk.’
These few words were enough to stir to life a horrid vision in Carnelian’s mind. As if from on high in one of the watch-towers that rose from a causeway, he saw the sartlar plague creeping through the tenements and hovels. What horror as the last scrap of food was devoured, with no hope of more anywhere, while every day brought ever more hungry mouths, ever more empty stomachs. ‘They will devour themselves.’
‘We cannot allow this to happen,’ said the homunculus and Carnelian noticed how firmly Legions gripped the little man’s neck. ‘Without the sartlar to till and water it, the Land is already dying. Without the food the earth produces, the cities will die.’ The Grand Sapient leaned forward over the head of his homunculus. ‘But Osrakum will die first.’
Carnelian’s breath stopped. Until that moment he had been an observer. ‘How?’ was all he managed to say.
‘Within the Hidden Land there is less than a month of food. Before the sartlar consume themselves utterly, Osrakum will starve.’
A new vision crept into Carnelian’s mind. A miraculous vision of the lake and its palaces, but this wonder was rotting at its roots. What would happen when the Masters began to starve? He snatched his mind’s eye away from seeing more. ‘What can we do?’
‘Only one path remains open to us. The legions must be summoned to drive the sartlar back onto the Land; to save what can be saved, of the harvest, of the Land, of the sartlar, of the Commonwealth; to allow food to flow back into Osrakum. We must have the authority to transmit the command codes.’
Still caught in the coils of his dark vision, Carnelian took a while to appreciate what Legions was waiting for. ‘Why ask me? Have you not communicated this to the God Emperor?’
‘For the moment Their condition is beyond any remedy.’
Suspicion leapt into Carnelian’s mind. Even in the throes of the maggot infestation it should have been possible for them to raise Osidian to enough lucidity to make this decision. Doubt ate away at this conclusion. He was remembering how weak Osidian had been, how spiritless. Morunasa had forced this new infestation on Osidian before he had fully recovered from the last. But Carnelian dare not trust the Wise. Nothing they did was free of the shadow of manipulation. Perhaps they feared that if Osidian were to make this decision it would confirm his absolute power, and what might they gain by passing the decision to Carnelian? Perhaps that any disasters consequent on the decision could be laid at his feet. A darker possibility occurred to him. If he gave the command, would he not appear in Osidian’s eyes to be usurping the power rightly his? Did the Wise seek to cleave them from each other the better to control both? Then the thought came that perhaps the Wise wanted to summon the legions to use them to re-establish their Great Balance. Perhaps even to take power for themselves. What did he know about what was really going on in the outer world other than what he had just been told? He looked out along the Canyon, wishing he had followed his heart and ridden to where he could have seen things for himself. He shook his head. He was sinking into a quagmire of self-defeating argument. He knew in his bones the vision Legions had described to him must be true or close to the truth, but did it have to be he who made this decision? Was there time for him to return to the Labyrinth and raise Osidian himself? Then his mind began to drift again towards contemplating, almost as a whisper, what might happen in the palaces of the Masters should famine come to their coombs. There was no time to delay.